You’ve figured out that you want to create your own website instead of hiring a professional designer. Awesome! Now what? Before you put pen to paper (or cursor to screen), you need to know what makes a successful website.
What successful website design tips and ideas can you use to make your website go from ‘yes, a newbie definitely created this’ to ‘oh my god, I can’t believe how stunning this website looks’? Here are 5 strategies to guide you when creating your own website so that your website is more user-friendly, and converts more visitors into subscribers into sales.
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1. An easy-to-use website creation platform
This successful website tip is more so for you than for your site’s visitors. Since you’re not outsourcing web design to a professional designer, you need a DIY website creation platform that’s easy-to-use, but that also offers you robust features and solutions. As you may know, I use and recommend Wix for creating successful websites.
I'm not here to say that Wix is the only option (check out this blog post with the top website builders to create your own website), but I've found huge success with it and really enjoy using it. Wix is one of the easiest and most affordable website-creation platforms out there, and even the most non-techie of non-techie online entrepreneurs can create swoon-worthy websites with it.
The drag-and-drop editor makes adding content and design features a breeze.
The templates are easy to personalize and provide a professional look even if you don't have any technical knowledge.
You can do all of the updates and customizations yourself, anytime.
The platform provides everything you need to get started - so you can get your site up and running as soon as possible.
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2. A legible typography and an enticing design
For you to have a successful website, you need your visitors to enjoy accessing it. This means that the typography, color scheme, and photos you choose should for your site should be cohesive and attractive.
As such, select a font for your website that is not excessively cursive, in an abrasive or poorly-contrasting color, or too small, which reduce your site’s legibility, pay attention to the color scheme that you choose for your site, since bright and fluorescent colors tend to aggravate the eyes, and never upload a photo that is pixelated since that portrays unprofessionalism.
When designing your website, make use of different sections, fonts, colors, sizes, calls to action, and photos to increase its interactivity rate (the more clicks you get, the lower your site’s bounce rate, the higher the number of pageviews, and the better you’re ranked on Google). That’s why having a streamlined navigation bar and a clear path for your visitors to follow is of utmost importance (check out the next two points!).
3. A streamlined navigation bar
Do you know that feeling of landing on a website for the first time, and not knowing where to look and what to click? There are so many options, that you get confused and overwhelmed, and don’t take any action. That’s why your successful website needs a streamlined navigation bar.
Take a look at your site’s navigation bar. How many links do you have on it? Which links can you group, or eliminate altogether?
Streamline it so that you have 3-5 links on your navigation bar (which should be at the very top or on the left of your website) at most. On Yes To Tech’s homepage, those are: start here, blog, resources, products, and free course.
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4. A clear path for your visitors to follow
A visitor will land on your site to learn something new or to solve one of their problems. As such, including a funnel front and center on your website’s homepage that guides your visitors on a directed journey throughout your site is essential.
When brainstorming what to add to your funnel, think about what you do and who you serve. What’s the reason why someone’s coming to your site? What do they want to learn? What can you offer them, for free, to help them achieve just that?
If you take a look at Yes To Tech’s homepage, the funnel is the section that starts with ‘Help me help you! Click an option below’. It has something for every type of visitor that lands on my site, from the person who knows exactly what they’re looking for to the one who’s confused about what they need, and from the person who needs more help to the one who’s more advanced.
Each of the elements of the funnel is an entry-point to one of the topics I talk about on my site: website and blog creation ("I want to create a website for my business but I have no idea where or how to start"), branding for business ("I dream about customizing my brand's fonts, colors and logo, but I have zero design skills"), and traffic generation ("I already have a website, but I need help driving explosive amounts of traffic to it"). The funnel guides the visitor on a clear path to the type of content they need right now, and takes them on a journey from free content to e-mail sequence to paid offer.
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5. A blog that’s consistently fed with fresh, new content
Before your palms start sweating at the mention of the word ‘consistently’, by ‘consistently’ I mean publishing a (as in one) new blog post on your website every week or every month, not every day.
Go after your ideal audience in Facebook groups, on your own social media platforms, and on other popular blogs, research Google for trending topics, look at the questions people are asking on Yahoo answers, on Reddit, and on Quora, pay attention to the topics of blog posts that get most shares, and the videos on YouTube that have gone viral.
This is the type of blog post content that you should create for your website. Do you write about nutrition, and your ideal audience is interested in a particular diet that seems to be getting people stellar results? Write a blog post about that. Do you write about makeup, and someone is looking for a comparison between the best undereye concealers? Write a blog post about that. Do you write about books, and someone is seeking ways to learn how they can read faster? Write a blog post about that.
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Your blog posts should be comprised of content that your ideal audience is Googling, and has questions about (remember: your visitors get on your site to learn something new or to solve one of their problems). By creating content that answers those questions, you'll become the go-to person in your field. This will boost the search results for your content and for your website, increase the level of interest in your site, and stimulate word of mouth as time goes by.
Having a successful website will increase your like, know and trust factors, since you’re providing your ideal audience with valuable content chock-full of quality (which is better than quantity). By following those successful website design tips and examples, you’ll be sure to convert your one-time visitors into raving fans (and paid customers) in no time!
If you’re ready to get your own DIY site online, but don’t know where and how to start, make sure to sign up for my FREE 5-day ‘Epic Website Challenge’ by filling out the form below.
Fill out the form below to join the 5-day EPIC WEBSITE CHALLENGE now and finally get your dream website out of your head!
Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means that if you make a purchase after clicking on one of the links, I get a commission at no extra cost to you. This helps me maintain this website and consistently bring you great, free content like this.
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